A New Player
by Tomthepower
Summary: Aeden Marshal, a rear admiral from the halo universe, finds himself in a strange new world. How will he adjust to non-military life, how will he fit into this new world, and what will he do when he finds himself having to stop another genocide. On break probably until march. I upped the rating to M due to mild swearing. Hiatus almost over.
1. Introductions

This chapter takes place just after the red trailer. Ruby has just finished killing off a pack of beowolves when she notices something imbedded in the head of one of her victims. When she goes to see what it is, she meets it's owner who appears to know nothing about the world. In other words, it's a massive informational onslaught for the OC.

Also a quick note from the author. This chapter was an absolute chore for me. It's primarily dialogue and I couldn't quite get Ruby's personality right and in my opinion it just doesn't flow very well. Not even kidding I was honestly debating if it had to be present in the story at all but I honestly think I just had to put it in. You could honestly probably skip it if it gets unbearable. Much like the actual series it will get better as it progresses, I promise, so anyone who actually keeps reading thanks. please review. Hopefully I can get some feedback before I finish chapter 3 because I feel like I done goofed on a few things.

* * *

Chapter 1

Introductions

As I walk through the snow covered battlefield that is now filled with the bodies of dead beowolves, I find it hard to look away from the grim as they disintegrate. It's an oddly… well satisfying thing to watch. Not sure if that's the right word to describe the feeling but it is something that is hard to look away from as creepy as that may sound. This actually turned out to be a fairly eventful trip for me. It's actually a first. I mean, this isn't the first time I've had the pleasure of killing grim, but a whole pack of beowolves! The rush is simply indescribable. Before I leave the clearing I notice that among the corpses there is something lodged in one of them. I use my speed to run and get a closer look at it. I pulled it out of the beowulf's head. It's a throwing knife, why is there a throwing knife? I don't use knives.

"Where did this…" I started

" I'm gonna want that back." said some unknown voice behind me. Startled, I swung my scythe as I turned around only for it to be brought to an abrupt stop at the tip of a tall man's sword. He wore some kind of dark green plated armor with a unique design that wasn't like anything I have ever seen before. His helmet is the same color as the rest but it has what looks like a white mask with several spikes of varying sizes that went from front to back. It also had two circular windows made of a gold tinted glass for the eyes. "Whoa! Not the reaction I was hoping for."

"Oh, sorry!" I said in a somewhat panicked voice as I realize I just assaulted a man. " Are you okay?"

"Relax no harm done," he replied. " Now, would you mind giving me my knife back." He then held out his right hand.

" Oh, ah, right." I say as I give him his knife back. " Are you okay, I didn't mean to attack you, you just… snuck up on me."

" Look it's fine just forget about it. It's probably my fault for for trying to sneak up on you for the sake of a dramatic entrance. Now, do you think you could point me towards the nearest town because I have no clue where I am right now."

" That would be my home town, Patch. I could take you there if you want."

"Well if you're headed there anyway, then sure why not." He replied as he finally sheathed his sword.

* * *

We started walking in silence, which made me kinda nervous. I wasn't really sure how to talk to this guy. He seemed nice enough but between the fact that I attacked him, he was lost out in the forest fully armored, and skilled enough to stop Cresent Rose on the TIP of his blade (I'm still trying to figure that one out), I had no idea how to I should start a conversation.

"So uh, you come here often?"He said. Finally breaking the awkward silence. I snickered a little bit because it was a really generic line that just sounded more awkward than the silence. "Oh give me a break, you clearly didn't know what to say either."

" I'm sorry, that was just really bad," I reply with laughter still somewhat apparent in my voice.

"And what would you have gone with, just walking in silence until Jason stabs us."

" Who's Jason?"

"Damn it. One day I'll make a reference everyone will understand. Just forget about it and answer the original question."

"I was honestly wondering that myself when you aid that so I don't know."

"What? No. I meant do you come here often. Though I'd like to change it to why were you here this place seems pretty far out of the way from pretty much everything."

"I was visiting my mom. She died a few years ago and her grave is back that way."

"Oh, well, I'm sorry for you loss."

"Thanks"

"You, ah… You want to change topics now."

" Yeah, sure."

"Okay then, Umm. That was an impressive show you put on back there. Where did you learn how to do that?"

" My uncle Crow taught me. He's a teacher at Signal Academy,"

" Really. And what does this apparently badass uncle of yours teach?"

"Just general combat."

"Wait a minute, are you telling me that there are schools with classes that teach 14 year olds how to wield weapons twice their size?"

" Well when you say it like that it sounds irresponsible but yeah. We even design our own weapons."

" Well then, I know where I'm applying for my next job."

"While I'm thinking about it, What kind of sword is that. I've never seen anything like that."

"It's a custom made knecht kriegsmesser. And no, I have no idea if that's how it's pronounced." He explains as he draws his sword. He put it between his thumb and pointer fingers wiped off some kind of greenish fluid I didn't even want to ask about, then he tossed the hilt upwards and caught it by the back of the blade. Then shifted the hilt over to me. "Here, you want to hold it?" He asked.

"Sure." I answered asa grabbed the wooden hilt. When he let go of the blade, I found out that it was a lot lighter than its size would suggest. It seemed at least a foot longer than most one handed swords I've seen. If I had to guess I'd say the whole sword was around 45 inches and the blade alone was probably a good 38 inches. The blade was sharp, well balanced, and in pretty good condition other than being in need of cleaning and maybe polishing. No chips, few scratches, no rust, or anything else that would suggest the sword was even used. Though judging from the fact he had to clean it before handing it to me, I'm guessing that it's been used plenty.

"You see, it's about seven inches longer than the typical model," he went on. "making roughly as long as a rapier. But since its outer layer is titanium, there isn't much of a weight difference. It's core is made out out of perfectly quenched martensite. I'm actually not sure if that's considered differentially hardened or not but either way it's a nice sword."

" It's not, In order for it to be differentially hardened it has to be the same type of metal and cooled at different rates in different areas so that the quenching process achieves different levels of hardness."

" You seem oddly educated in the subject. Are you like a lot older than you look, or maybe some kind of super genius."

" No nothing like that. I'm just kinda a nerd when it comes to weapons."

"I can imagine. Somehow that scythe looks like it would be really hard to engineer."

"So why did you decide to have two different metals? Titanium is lighter and stronger and I would think it would be pretty hard to keep the two completely separate in the forging process. So why not make it all titanium. Actually how did you even keep them completely separate when making a sword?"

" I didn't, it was someone else's job to figure that out but if you're that curious you could probably look it up. And I requested it for a few reasons. Primarily because having weight to it gives it more momentum and therefore more cutting power. Also, it makes it more likely to chip instead of break."

"How so?"

"Have you ever seen a broken window? When the glass breaks in one spot, the cracks travel through the window till it reaches the frame. Similarly, if the blade chips, the crack will travel through the titanium but stop at the steel."

" Okay that makes sense, you want to see mine?"

" Nah, I already know plenty about it. It's a large, transforming scythe with a one sided blade on the inside. It's also a high impact sniper rifle that seems capable of firing regardless of the weapon's form. If I had to guess I'd say it's a 40 caliber."

" How did you figure that out."

"The sound. I may not use guns but It's hard not to know a thing or two about them when you are in the military. Although, I'm actually pretty curious as to how you managed to run that fast towards the end of that battle."

"My semblance is speed."

" And the informational onslaught continues."

"Ahh, what."

" What's a semblance?"

"Well why didn't you say so?"

He replied after releasing a long, frustrated sigh."Please, just answer the question."

"It's a power that everyone get's after their aura is unlocked, it's different for every person."

"Aura?"

" It's basicly a energy shield that comes from a person's soul and powers their semblance."

"Something tells me that's about as much sense as you're going to make."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I mean, what you just described is basically magic."

"It's not magic it's… well… huh. What is aura."

" Yeah, that's what I thought. So now that I've picked your brain, anything you want to ask me?"

"Well now that you mention it, I guess I'm a little curious about what you were doing out in the woods. And also the whole 'where are you from' thing I asked earlier."

" Well the specifics to both questions are probably considered classified, but I can probably tell you that I was on a mission for admiral Hood, everything finally seemed like it was going well, one thing led to another, and the next thing I knew I was alone in the woods watching some 14 year old girl kill a pack of, what were those things?"

"The grim I killed? Pretty sure they were beowolves."

"Grim?"

"How do you not know about grim. Hey are literally the greatest threat to mankind."

"Just answer the goddamn question."

"Okay then. I'd think the guy who hasn't given me a straight answer would have a little more patience but whatever."

"Well I could tell you buuuut…"

"What. you'd have to kill me?"

"Immediately and without hesitation."

"Well okay then."

"So, the grim."

"Oh well, they're basically, a bunch different types of soulless creatures whose only purpose in life seems to be the extinction of the human race. Oh look, we're here." I said as my family's home came into view. It was actually still about two hundred yards away still so that statement may have been a bit premature. We had just come out of the woods onto the path that leads to my front door.

"So where's the rest of the village." He asked.

"Oh right, if you head that way on this road," I pointed in the direction away from my house. " You should be at patch within ten minutes."

" Well thanks for getting me this far, uh, you."

"Oh yeah I guess I never did introduce myself. I'm Ruby."

" I'm Aeden."

" Wow, I didn't think there was anyone in the military who used swords. Unless you're a huntsman from Atlas."

"Well I'm a unique case. I wasn't officially labeled as special forces yet I handled a lot of special operations."

" Oh, well, why weren't you officially part of the special forces?"

"It's a long story. Besides, shouldn't you be getting home?"

End of Chapter 1

* * *

If anyone actually succeeded at powering through the first chapter Congratulations, you get a cookie. Any criticism is welcome in the comments so long as it includes a way to fix said criticisms. I will have the next chapter up soon, I am open to suggestions.

One thing in particular I'm going back and forth on is pulling a Bram Stoker. For those of you who have never read the original dracula book, that means you'd only get to see the main, or in this case new, character the point of view of other characters throughout the story. Opinions? I will hold off on posting chapter three until I get an ample amount of feedback on that.

And final thing I wanted to say, chapters 1 and 2, aren't even final. They're kinda my trial run since this is my first fanfic so if I find that they need extensive editing I will do that.


	2. Getting Acquainted

Ruby and Yang are trying to find their way to the great hall after Ozpin's speech when they notice a lot of commotion. When they find the source of it all, Ruby sees someone she didn't expect to see. Contains first fight scene.

* * *

Chapter 2

Getting Acquainted

"Soooo, what exactly happened after I left with my friends earlier?" I asked hoping to hear more about how she exploded a hole in front of the school.

" Oh you mean before or after I exploded a hole." Ruby replied apparently still a little bit mad about me ditching her though she was over it for the most part.

"Why not both" I answered.

Well It's like I said earlier, I tripped over the… Ice queen's luggage which I guess had dust in it that got knocked out. Then while she was yelling at me the dust made me sneeze which must've caused it to explode.

" Ouch, how big was the hole."

"Actually I don't think there was actually a hole."

"Oh so then what happened?" I asked as I turned around to notice someone run past me.

"This guy named Juane, the guy who threw up on the ship, helped me up and, hey watch it." She said as another student ran into her at full speed.

"Sorry." he apologized.

"Where is everyone going?" I asked.

"A new teacher is squaring off against three new students in an open match. We're going to watch." he answered.

"A three on one? Oh I am not missing this." Ruby said, quickly shifting from surprised to giddy.

"Yeah I'm right behind ya." I replied as we started to follow the crowd since we had no idea where we were going.

When we final arrived, the seats in the circular, arena style stands were half filled with armed spectators watching the fight. The majority of them were probably debating whether or not they should join the battle. Meanwhile, the three who had already done so royally getting their butts kicked by some guy in green armor and a jet black sword. The first combatant wore black vest and matching dress pants with a red undershirt that looked like something Ruby would were if she were a boy. He also used a reversed blade sword that was glowing red from what I assume was flame dust. The second challenger was a guy with red hair, a red claymore, and a silver jacket with light gray stripes that went from his sleeves to what I could only assume is a dust powered bomb attached to his back. The final combatant was green haired girl with a bow and arrow type weapon that had blades on both ends of the shaft.

"Oh my gosh IT'S THE GUY WITH THE FIRE SWORD."Ruby gushed.

" Really?" I asked. "This guy is winning a three on one and you gush about one of the losing guy's weapon,"

"Oh I'm gushing about everything this is so cool." She answered as we watched him deflect a barrage of both ranged attacks from the bow and melee attacks from the swords. The barrage finally ended when he detached his sheath from his side and swung it so hard at the one with the reverse blade that he was launched four feet back and landed on his back while the one in silver leaped back, apparently confused as to what just took out his buddy. The armored man took the opportunity to rush the girl, dodging and deflecting bullets as he went. While she wasn't defenseless in close quarters, she was out classed by whoever this guy only thing she managed to block was one wide swing from his sword. After that, he gave her a left hook to the face so hard that the whiplash looked like it could've broken her neck. All it actually did was cause her to stumble backwards a little bit but that was all he needed. it was over for her because he just started bombarding every new hole in her defence with fast and hard attacks with his black blade. Her aura was depleted well before her allies could help her and she was effectively eliminated her from the duel.

"Who is this guy? " I asked.

"I don't know but he's so cool," Ruby replied. "Wait, actually I think I do know him."

" Really?"

"Oh yeah. He's the guy who I met in the woods by Mom."

"When was..."

"Shh, I'm trying to watch."

And on that note we turned our attention back to the fight to see the silver guy taking a knee about ten yards away from his opponent by his red claymore, which had been broken just above the hilt. Meanwhile, his enemy grabbed his teammates reverse blade sword by the blunt end, stopping his attack dead in its tracks . He then pulled it to the side of his head and by extension its now exposed wielder exposed. He then punched him in the gut hard with the hilt of his katana. The boy hunched over, coughing violently.

"You know, I'm sure that there is an advantage to having a reverse blade sword in a profession centered on killing grim," stated with a hint of sarcasm in his voice. " But for the life of me I just can't see it." After that he released his hold on the kid's blade and kicked his already off balanced opponent square in the chest causing him to stumble back. The victor then sheathed his blade and reattached it to his side. " Your aura is now in the red and unless I'm mistaken, That means you're ineligible to continue the duel."

" No!" He responded. "I'm not done yet."

" Yes you are. One of Ozpin's terms for allowing this was that I'm not allowed to hurt any students and that's exactly what is going to happen if you come at me one more time."

Hearing that final remark provoked him further and caused him to charge straight at the man who just won a three on one. The man simply sighed and put his hand on his sheathed sword hilt. As the boy drew near I heard a click, and then an extremely loud rush of wind accompanied by a crack of a bone as the blurred image of his sword connected with the boy's chest. He landed about ten feet from the man. According the aurameter, the boy's aura was at zero and while the winner was virtually untouched.

"You know, you're lucky I decided to hit you with the back of my blade." he said as he began to walk towards his victim.

"Judging by the sound I'd say you have three, maybe four broken ribs." As he drew close. he knelt down by the boy's face.

"You're opponent's won't always be so merciful to such a display," he said. He then punched the kid in the face and knocked him out. Once he was sure the kid was unconscious, he placed his hand on the kid's wound. I saw a flash of blue light and the wound was gone.

The man stood up, a glowing red blade was thrown into the ground at the apparent victor's feet. A second later, it exploded and launched the warrior back four or five feet. I looked up at the aurameter and it read ' Aeden Marshal 41, Simon Megistus 38.' When I looked over at the boy who I thought was disarmed and he now had twin Ice blades I don't even know how to describe.

" Oh, that is awesome!" Ruby shouted. "Did you see that Yang? He used his jacket to make swords out of dust."

" Okay now that is actually pretty cool." I replied.

Once the smoke cleared, Aedan was just getting off the ground with his sword somehow still in hand, "Nice work kid." Aeden spoke up. Judging by his tone, he was either genuinely impressed by his opponents actions or just continuing to be a sarcastic asshole. "Not to sound condescending or anything but hats off to you for thinking tactically. Try adding some gravity dust to it next time. The only force behind what is an expanding flame with no pressure behind it. You basically hit me with an incendiary grenade."

" Judging by your aura I'd say it was effective enough." he replied.

" Yet I'm still standing, perfectly capable of kicking your ass, I'm pretty sure that says plenty on the effectiveness of your attack. But, just because you had a moment of intelligence…" he turned to the stands. " If anyone wants to join in feel free. Pool's open, water's fine." Ruby and I both immediately jumped into the ring for no other reason than it looked like fun. "Okay so we have two more victims. Anyone else coming down?" he asked. There was a brief moment of silence while nobody moved. They all just sat there either weighing their option or cowering in fear."Really? No one else. You're all just going to sit there like a bunch of pissants?"

Almost on cue, another girl came down and the name Pyrrha Nikos appeared on the board. Pyrrha wore her red hair in a slightly curled,waist-length ponytail and had bright green eyes. She was tall and had a fairly muscular body though not nearly as much a I do. She wore a light-brown, strapless top split divided vertically with some bronze patterns along with a red miniskirt. She wore a red ankle-length drapery that appeared to be wrapped around her skirt. There was a small circular bronze plaque by her right hip opposite two pouches with both connected to a belt. The plate bears her "shield and spear" emblem. She wore a bronze circlet headpiece that could be seen above her ear and under her bangs. She also sported a large bronze necklace type thing I don't know how to describe. Her armor had elaborate bronze greaves that start below her mid-thigh, continuing downwards into her boots and a pair of cuisses that begin mid-thigh and end slightly above her knees. She also donned a bronze bracer on top of the sleeve on her left arm. Don't ask me why but I guess she decided to fight in high-heeled boots. "I guess I'll give it a try," she said as she took a wide stance with her shield raised and her spear at it's side.

"Okay so now we've got another one. That's… better I guess," Aeden announced. " A four on one ought to be entertaining, but just for the heck of it. I won't draw my sword until it comes down to me and whoever is the last one standing."

He then took a wide stance with both of his arms raised in a defensive stance. He was waiting for one of us to make the first move. Eventually, we did. Ruby took out her massive scythe and charged him. But right in the middle of her first swing, he leaned inward and grabbed the scythe's shaft with his left hand, stopping it dead in its tracks while his right hand punched her in the face hard enough to make her take her right hand off her scythe and cover her face. He then took advantage of that by ducking under her scythe, getting back to back with her, and then using his superior grip on the scythe to put it to her neck and put her in a choke hold.

"You know what the problem is with long, heavy weapons like scythes?" he began as ruby's hands moved to her throat in an effort to prevent blacking out. "They're easy to counter if you know how. You see, they generally have a wide swing which leaves you open both just before and after each attack. Generally your speed may be enough to prevent that from happening but unfortunately for you, I'm faster."As he finished speaking, I charged in to try and help Ruby. As I drew closer, his left hand let go of the scythe's shaft while his right arm swung it around his side and struck the side of my face with the back end of it. Ruby was released by the move which left her gasping for air while I was knocked on my butt.

"And you should never charge an enemy whose weapon has a longer reach than your's, it puts you at a tactical disadvantage because your enemy has plenty of time to anticipate you and strike before you are within range to do anything." he said as he threw crescent rose back Ruby who collapsed from the force since she was still a little disoriented. "I won't be a forgiving next time you do something that reck... ohh shit!" he yelled as he did a quick step forward to dodge Pyrrha's attempt at a sneak attack.

Pyrrha and Simon decided to step in at that moment. Both of them had apparently learned from our mistake and were both being pretty cautious. They kept a fast and fluid rhythm of attacks between the two of them and used the length of their swords to keep him out of range for any hand to hand combat. The only thing he really could do was dodge. There form was almost flawless and their teamwork was surprisingly good for two people who haven't met. Unfortunately that wasn't enough. Simon took a step forward and Aeden reached out as though he were trying to grab a blade with his bare hands. Then, with another flash of blue light, the Ice blade turned into a cloud of steam. Shortly after a disarmed Simon was launched out and laid motionless on the floor. When the makeshift fog cleared, Pyrrha's red and gold blade was crossed with Aeden's newly stolen ice blade. Pyrrha was the first to make the next move when she brought her shield up for a shield bash that he blocked with the spiked hilt guard of his blade while still using the blade of the sword to hold pyrah's sword a bay. They then broke away for a second until Pyrrha began a rapid barrage of thrusting attacks with her weapon's spear form. Each thrust brought the blade mere inches from his helmet as he dodged her blows. My guess is she was trying to keep him from getting close enough to counter her. Unfortunately for her, he still managed to exploit a weakness in this defensive strategy when he took a step forward mid thrust, grabbed the shaft of her weapon, and pulled it to his side. He then pulled it forward, and exposed her right hand which he immediately struck with Simon's ice blade. The ice sword broke at the hilt, but that was irrelevant now because she released her grip on her weapon which he immediately picked up. There was a fair amount of distance between him and Pyrrha which resulted in a short pause in the fighting. Me and Ruby ran to Pyrrha's side with our weapons raised in case he tried to rush her.

"Got your back," Ruby announced. Oddly enough, though, he didn't seem to have any plans to to attack us or Pyrrha. Despite the fact that her aura was low and she lost her primary weapon. It would've been easy to finish her off and be down to a two on one. Instead, he took a rather peculiar stance where he extended his left hand with his palm out and thumb extended outward pointing to his right. He then placed the end of the spear's shaft on his thumb while his right hand gripped the base. He lead with his left foot which was pretty far forward. It looked pretty odd but from what I've seen from this guy, it's probably going to be tough to beat. But, as expected, Ruby once again charged straight at him, and almost immediately got punished by a spear thrust to her head. His thrust must have been deceptively powerful, because despite the fact that Ruby was coming at him full speed, he didn't move an inch when he hit her, heck he even held the pose for a quick second after he hit her. Ruby on the other hand, ran into the spear so fast that she did a half flip and continued flying until her back cracked the concrete wall of the ring. She fell to the floor after a second and didn't move.

"Ruby!" I shouted.

"She's fine," Aedan said in a completely indifferent voice. " just look at the scoreboard." I did what he said and looked at the board. It's readout was Pyrrha Nikos 43; Ruby Rose 7; Yang Xiao Long 91; Aeden Marshal 35: which meant that while we had been getting wrecked for the last ten minutes or so, he was basically untouched since Simon's exploding sword attack. Between that and what he just did to Ruby, I just snapped. By eyes turned red, reflecting the rage he had coaxed from me. He seemed to have picked up on what was about to happen because he took the same stance he used on Ruby. I fire my gauntlets behind me to propel my body at him at an incredible speed. But just before my fist connects with him, he thrust his spear at me in much the same way he did at Ruby and it has almost the exact same effect. Luckily I wasn't going nearly as fast as Ruby was so I would probably be halfway out of aura by now. But since I wasn't, my aura was still at 83%. As I tried to get back on my feet, A familiar red and gold spear was sung into the side of my face with a ruthless power behind it and knocked me onto my side. I looked up and saw its wielder holding the blade to my throat.

" Okay, I'm just a little bit lost here, so if you could explain to me why you thought that was a good idea after seeing how it worked out for your sister, that'd be gr…" He was interrupted by an airborne shield that struck him in the back of the neck. Now that he was staggered, I grabbed the spear's shaft with my left hand and used it to pull myself up and deliver a powerful punch to his face. Not only did the blast cause him to release his hold on the spear, it also knocked him flat on his back. I saw this as my chance to finish him off. I rushed him before he had a chance to get up and just before I could deliver the final blow, he grabbed Pyrrha's shield and deflected the blow to his left. He discarded it after my gauntlets struck it but before they had touched the ground. Now that his hands were freed, he placed his left hand behind my right shoulder and used his right hand to pull my arm behind my back, forcing me to the ground. Once again Pyrrha came to my rescue when she attempted to stab him with her spear. She must've reclaimed it after I disarmed him. He leaped back and managed to dodge it but he was forced to release me from the arm hold. I quickly got up and saw Pyrrha standing beside me, completely rearmed and ready to fight. We were about to go in for one final attack when all of the sudden, he said.

"You're all first years aren't you?"

"Yes actually," Pyrrha answered hesitantly."How did you know?"

"As a whole you're simply not fighting like a well coordinated team," He answered bluntly." So I'll make this easy for you.I forfeit." He announced before he turned around and walked out of the room. Somehow that just left me more angry and confused than anything that happened during the fight. Judging by the low chatter coming from the spectators, they agreed. After a few seconds, Pyrrha approached me and asked " Are you okay?"

" I'm fine," I answered. " What about *gasp* RUBY." I exclaimed. Just then remembering that my little sister got brutally KOed. I looked over and she was sitting against the arena wall looking pretty disappointed. I ran over to her.

"Are you okay Ruby?" I asked.

"Yeah I'm fine," Ruby answered. "I'm fine. I just need a second to catch my breath. What about you"

" Don't worry about me, I'm fine" I replied. "Who was that guy and how do you know him?"

" (sigh) It's a long story." She answered. She began to tell me as we started walking towards the great hall where we heard we were going to sleep tonight. It wasn't long before we realized that we still don't know where the heck we're going.

* * *

We were in the great hall where the first years had gathered since we didn't have teams or dorms yet. Ruby was telling me the story about how she had just finished killing the pack of beowolves she told us about earlier when she accidentally assaulted a man and then proceeded to guide him back to our home town of patch. The story actually provided more questions than answers. Questions like: where did he come from, how does he not know what the grimm are, how does he have the ability to crush six first prospective huntsmen/huntresses and nt have his aura unlocked, When did he get it unlocked, what semblance allows him to both heal broken ribs and boil an ice sword, and what was he doing here. All of these answers were met with simple put 'I don't know's'. After a brief moment of silence Ruby asked me a question of her own.

"Why do you think he forfeited the fight?" She asked in a hushed and, well almost sad whisper. From the sound of it, she seemed like she was having second thoughts about coming here.

"I'm not sure," I answered. " He only did it after finding out we were first years, Maybe he didn't want to exhaust us befor our initiation."

"Well you're half right."

"How long were you listening?" Yang asked, clearly worried about what else he heard.

"With all the questions you have that's the one you start with. You are just a bundle of disappointment today aren't you?" He said sarcastically, almost immediately causing Yang's eyes to turn red. "Lighten up it was a joke, and to answer your question not too long. Just long enough to know you were talking about me."

"Why are you even here? Only first year students are supposed to be here tonight. And no offence but don't think too many students are that old," I said.

"First of all, I'm only 28."

"Still way older than most people here at beacon,"I retorted

" Yes well unfortunately, we can't all come here at fifteen like you're little sister," He said snidely. I wasn't entirely sure but I think that was a stab at how Ruby skipped two years and I didn't. "And to answer your original question, while you're the only ones sleeping in here, the_ is open to all students and faculty. Myself included."

"Wait you're a teacher here?" Ruby asked in disbelief. " How? I mean, two months ago you didn't even know what a Huntsman was, and now you're teaching us how to be one. Just, How? When?Why?"

"I asked Ozpin about a month ago because I needed a job and he said okay." He answered bluntly. "Obviously here was a little more to it but it's not an interesting enough story to elaborate on."

"Well…" I started. " What will you be teaching?"

"Military tactics and strategy."

"Wait, What? Why? We're not in the military," I asked

" Thinking tactically is a universally useful asset." he answered. "Our primary advantage over the grim is our higher thought capacities. If you don't learn it's value you're going to fail… a lot. Or you'll just be killed off before you graduate, it's not outside the realm of possibilities."

"Thanks, that's real comforting," I said sarcastically.

"What part of Today's events makes you think I care for your comfort?" he replied.

"How about the part where you forfeited the fight despite the fact you were clearly going to win.," I retorted back to him. "Which begs the other obvious question, why did you forfeit."

" Because I believed I had made my point." He said in a serious tone I was beginning to think was impossible for him. "Consider it my first lesson. Any disadvantage can be overcome. It's just a matter of figuring out how. Being clever and resourceful will always be more of an asset than being strong or well equipped. But that's enough of that. What have you been up to Ruby? Judging by the fact that you're here, something interesting must've happened."

"You probably don't want to hear it. You have better things to do, and it's really not that interesting," Ruby replied shyly.

"What are you talking about?" I asked with a mix of both praise and pride. " You were incredible!"

"Yang, I," Ruby protested.

"If I had something better to do I wouldn't have asked," he interrupted. " Go on and tell the story. Or would you rather me get your sister's version?"

"Alright then," She responded. She began to tell the story of how she stopped an armed robbery with five to one odds and chased their leader to a rooftop where she met Goodwitch. He'd ask questions here and there like " Why was Goodwitch there, criminal activity isn't the usual job for a huntress?" and " Where did they put the plane? Was it just parked in the street?" or my personal favorite, " Why did they put you in a police interrogation room? What were they trying to recruit you into beacon or the witness protection program?"

When she finished he stood up. He stretched his arms out by extending them above his head and then immediately put them on his back and leaned back. " that's an interesting story Ruby," he said. "But I think it's about time I started trying to find the other people I demolished earlier."

"Why's that?" I asked. " No offence but you don't seem to broken up about beating up a bunch of kids. And despite the last five minutes, you don't seem like you're just looking for conversation."

"No offence taken, in fact that's actually a fair analysis. Good work. You're not going to believe this but Goodwitch is making me apologize to you guys for, and I quote, 'my unnecessary brutality during a fight against minors' which I am honestly surprised by. I thought she of all people would understand my reasons."

"Well you did almost make Ruby black out back there." I commented, honestly a little bit offended by that remark.

" Oh don't be a baby, I didn't even leave bruises." he retorted

"That doesn't mean it didn't hurt." Ruby chimed in.

" Really, I never would've guessed. Who would've thought you could get hurt in a fight. "

"Do you really have to be so sarcastic with your comments?" I asked

"You're kinda being a jerk."

"Of course I don't, but it helps me think."

" Why?"Ruby asked "that makes no sense."

"I don't know, I'm not a psychologist." He said, showing the first, and possibly only sign of humility I've seen from him. " Now if you have any more questions, ask now because I have to find everyone before the go to sleep." After a few seconds of thinking, all I could come up with was"What was with all those mid-fight explanations?"

"It's my job to teach isn't it? how are you supposed to learn if you don't understand your mistakes. Anything else you want to ask?" there was another few seconds of silence before Ruby chimed in and asked."What was the point of the fight?"

" There was actually three reasons. one to assess your skills and knowledge, two, to teach you the importance of strategic thinking in combat, and three, to show you the caliber and the brutality of the enemies you will be facing from this point forward."

"How did you stop Ruby's max speed without budging? The wind she creates alone can move tables." I asked because I'm not going to lie, that was pretty impressive and I was pretty curious at the time.

" What I did was I," he paused. Pondering what his answer was going to be. "Actually, you know what? You just gave me an idea for some extra credit later. So I'm going to go ahead and not answer your question just to be fair to the other students. But just because you were among the only brave souls who accepted my challenge, I will tell you it isn't a feat of strength."

" How did you heal that one kid's broken ribs?" I asked.

" My semblance." he answered simply.

"Which is?"

"Again, extra credit for later, sooo can't tell you. Though, if you payed close enough attention during the fight, you could make an educated guess. I don't suppose there is somewhere I can post the recording for others to view by any chance? Like maybe a school website, online course catalog, deep web chat room?"

"I'm sure there is but I don't know where to find it."

"Do you have any idea who would?"

" Shouldn't you know this? You work here don't you?" Ruby interjected.

" Oh yeah let me get right on that with the whole month of experience I've had while school wasn't even in session."

" Alright. Alright. Try talking to Goodwitch, she might know something."

"Thanks, I'll get right on that. Now If you'll excuse me I got to go. " He said as he got up and walked away. Leaving me and Yang both a little more and a little less confused.

"Okaaay then." I started. " I officially don't know what to think of this guy."

" Me neither," Ruby agreed. "It's like he shuffles back and forth between being rude and sarcastic and being totally sincere and informative at random."

" I'm starting to think he's just not a consistent person. First, he ruthlessly beats us to a pulp, then he comes in here and talks to someone he met once like he's an old friend, ask us if we have any questions, and then for half of them basically just said 'eh, you can probably figure it out'."

" So what do you think his idea for extra credit is?"

" I don't know. Why?"

"Just curious."

"Well I'm sure he'll tell us later." I looked down and noticed she was writing something. Naturally, I had to ask. " So what's that?"

"Writing a letter to my friends back at signal."

End of Chapter 2

* * *

Okay so what did you think of the first chapter I actually enjoyed writing.

Please go all out and be ruthlessly honest. I'm really hard to offend.

Also I would like to give a shout out to Mark. He's the youtuber that made the OC team I used for the opening fight scene.


	3. Chapter 3 First Class

This chapter will be about Aeden's first lesson. It will take place during the canon episodes 'lessons learned part 1 and 2'. It will also mock several things that didn't make sense in the original not unlike cinemasins. Also I'm going to try and have a monthly update schedule and despite this coming out in december it will count as november's update so you can count on getting one before January.

* * *

Chapter 3

First Class

"Wait, did you say 9?" I asked

" Uh, yeah why?" Ruby confirmed.

"It's 8:55 you dunce!" I shouted before I ran out into the hall and sprinted off towards my first class.

"To class." Ruby announced as the rest of my team began to follow me out the door. We were running as fast as we could. We ran through the hallways, we ran in the courtyard, and we ran up the stairs. Our first class was on the other side of beacon about half a mile away which would've been an easy jog had we not been dodging people and trying to navigate the unfamiliar layout of the school so we basically had to sprint the whole way. By the time we got there I was completely out of breath and so was virtually everyone that followed me other than Ruby and Pyrrha. The whole class was looking at us when we burst through the door. I looked at the analog clock above the door and it said the time was 9:04. I turned around to face the teacher and feared for my life. I was pretty surprised to see that it was the guy who not two days ago took on six freshmen. Same outfit and everything. And he was just staring at us silently while we stood there and caught our breath. After about ten seconds of this, he finally spoke up and said "Well? Are you going to find a seat or are you going to stand there for the rest of the class?"

Once he said that we all found some seats. Some of us said sorry as we did so but for the most part it seemed like the group just wanted to sit down silently and be done with the whole situation and sat down silently. Luckily it wasn't hard to find a place big enough for the whole team. For whatever reason, the room seemed fairly empty. Like a third of the class wasn't here. I guess we weren't the only ones having a rough first day. The desk were arranged in a circular, inclined pattern than almost resembled some sort of arena. At the center there was a table that's entire top looked like a screen. At both heads of the table, the main screen stopped about half a foot from the edge and in the middle of those sections was a slot that looked like it was meant to insert scrolls. If I had to guess I'd say that's how he operated the main screen. The back half of the room was just a large white wall and his desk was about two feet from it, well out of the way from from the actual class. Judging from that and the fact that it had absolutely nothing on it, I don't think he had any intention of using it during class.

"Now back to what I was saying before." He continued. " I've only got two rules in this room. Breaking either of them will result in whatever punishment I happen to think of at that moment. Number one, do not disrupt the class. I know that usually goes without saying, but when I say that I mean don't do anything that distracts either the whole or a large part of the class. My second rule is that while I'll allow you to speak freely and in whatever manner you want, just be prepared to deal with any and all backlashes and retorts. I will not pamper you for the sake of not hurting your feelings. Also, I mark everyone as on time regardless of tardiness or absence because, to put is simply, I don't care. You are all responsible for your own education. If you're late, try to sneak into the back row somewhere so that you don't disrupt the class. And finally, I do offer extra credit, there is a description in the class webpage I posted online. For those of you who weren't here when I gave the link, get it from someone else because we are ten minutes into class and I haven't started teaching."

With that he turned around and walked up to the central table and inserted his scroll into the slot at the end of the table. After a few seconds the main screen lit up blue with a 4*7 grid of blue squares roughly the size of a chess board.

"This first clip is when teams RWBY and JNPR had just retrieved there artifacts and were being pursued by a nevermore and a deathstalker." he explained as the screen soon began to change colors and displayed a 2 dimensional vertical holographic image of us at the temple. It started playing the footage of when Ruby had finally managed to get her cape unpinned to the ground by the Nevermore's feather. The Deathstalker was visible in the background, its tail still frozen in the ice. It showed me telling the group there is no point in fighting the grim. He paused the video after it showed us looking over to the Deathstalker as it had begun to crack the ice.

"Now who can tell me what was wrong with this strategy? There are at least three big flaws I'm looking for." He asked. The room was silent for what was realistically only a few seconds at most. "Come on, don't make me call on someone," he goaded. Still no response. "Fine then, Juane, you're up. Tell me something wrong with this."

" Oh, Well, umm…" He thought for a second. " Well, it relied on us beating a nevermore back to the school which in hindsight wasn't likely." He answered, clearly uncertain of his answer.

"Good work," he said, " That's one. Who's got two and three?" once again his question was met with an uncomfortable silence. "Come on guys, This isn't the arena. You're not going to get hurt for volunteering. Well not physically anyway."

Naturally, I was trying to think of the answer myself. Thoughts like 'maybe we risked endangering... wait no, everyone here is highly trained and the school probably has some sort of defense against the grim. After all, the emerald forest is too close for grim attacks to not be an issue. Could it have something to do with the risk of attracting the attention of even more grim?' I looked to the rest of my team to see if they had any ideas. What I saw was that blake was the only one paying attention. Yang was talking to Nora and Ruby was drawing a picture of Mr. marshal and the words "BLAH BLAH BLAH" written in big bold letters. It looked like something a five year old would do and I personally found it to be annoying. "How is he our leader?" I thought to myself.

"Okay fine here's your one hint," He said as he pulled up the picture of the death stalker trying to break the ice. That gave me an idea. My hand quickly shot up.

"Okay, you're up Ice queen. What do you think it is?" He said, wasting no time to call on me.

"Well if I had to guess," I started. " I probably should've reinforced the ice containing the death stalker before we tried to escape."

"You're on the right track," He answered. "Personally, I would've just killed it while it was defenseless. It is very rare to see a situation where finishing something while it's easy isn't a good idea. And even if you weren't sure if you could kill it, you could've easily blinded it which would just as effectively disabled the threat. You should've taken some sort of step to ensure you wouldn't see it later. Leaving it after seeing the ice start to crack just wasn't a good idea because between the two of them giving chase, you had no chance of avoiding a fight." he looked over at the clock above the door. "Okay so does anyone have a guess as to what the other thing that was wrong with this plan was? Since we now have about thirty minutes left, I'll let you discuss amongst yourselves. You've got two minutes."

The whole room started to talk with each other after that. And surprisingly enough, the entirety of team RWBY began to discuss the question, despite the utter lack of attention they were giving him a minute ago. Despite my previous observations, Ruby was the first one to say "So, do any of you have any ideas?"

"Oh so you were paying attention," I spate out, perhaps a bit less composed than i should've been. " you could've fooled me."

"Weise, do you have a problem with my sister." Yang interjected, being the protective sister she is.

" Guys calm down. We're supposed to be a team," Ruby said, apparently not angered by (and possibly unaware of) the anger my tone at all. "We have to figure this out. Do any of you have any ideas?"

"I'm not entirely sure, but I think it might have something to do with how we risked putting the school in danger." Blake spoke up for the first time since we got to class.

"I thought about that, but you could also make an argument that leading them back to a school of warriors training to kill grim would the smart move for obvious reasons," I said.

"Yeah I guess that's true," Blake replied. "Honestly, given how chaotic the situation was there's a lot of variables we didn't account for, at this point we're basically trying to guess which one is the one he's talking about."

"So chances are, he's looking for something central to the plan that we were banking on." I added.

"But do anyone have any Ideas as to what that could be?" Yang inquired. The group fell silent. Shortly after, Mr. Marshal spoke up.

"Time's up, any guesses?" He asked. A few people raised their hands. "Okay, how bout you." He pointed to a boy on the other end of the room from us.

"So, Is it maybe that they risked running into more grim on the way back?" the boy asked.

"Actually no." He answered. "Because while I doubt they thought of that, several of you had already made their way through that part of the woods which would've thinned the grim population in the area. Therefore, the risk of that happening was relatively low. Before we continue, I feel I should mention that there's no such thing as a perfect strategy, what I'm looking for is something obvious and crucial for the plan to succeed. So in other words if you have something minor then put your hands down." With that comment, every hand was retracted back to the desk. "Honestly I'm not even disappointed by this. The only people who could figure this one out would either have to watch the majority of the footage or actually be there. So, the third biggest hole in your strategy was, well, let me put it this way. Did any of you know where you were going? Other than Blake and Yang, you all found the temple on accident while either falling, being chased, or riding an ursa. And even then Blake and Yang were in the back of the group so they clearly played no role in guiding you back. Honestly, I'm amazed you aren't still wondering around in the forest."

He continued to lecture like this for a while, and as he did, I was beginning to feel more and more like an idiot. How did none of us ask the obvious questions he was bringing up. I sunk back into my chair in a vain attempt to hide from the rest of the class. How is it that the two teams who faced the greatest opposition survived when this was the best we could come up with.

"To be fair to teams JNPR and RWBY," he continued." They did pull it together then their backs were against the wall, or in this case," he fast forwarded the hologram to the ruins over the canyon. "the cliff." he then pressed a button on his scroll and the two dimensional picture turned into a three dimensional holographic display of the battle field. The two cliffs made up the left and right barriers of the map and the ruins themselves were the centerpiece of the image. The main level we were fighting on extruded about ten inches from the screen while the tallest tower peaked about a foot and a half above that point. When he paused the video again, it was when our two teams separated fighting the death stalker and the nevermore. "Looking at this from a tactical standpoint they are at a serious disadvantage. Can anyone tell me why in ten seconds or less?"

About five seconds later juan's hand went up "my team was at a disadvantage because we were cornered at the edge of a cliff and forced to attack it's most heavily armored side.

"That's, surprisingly right on the money. Good work!" he replied. " Now let's ask Ruby why her team was at a disadvantage. RUBY!" he shouted in a slightly raised voice, though he may as well have screamed because she couldn't have been more obviously startled. She seemed to have dozed off again because her head jolted upward so fast I thought I heard a bone crack. Blake whispered the question to her fairly discreetly so she didn't seem entirely lost.

" Oh, Yes, well," she started nervously with her voice much louder than it needed to be. "Our team's main disadvantage was… umm… that we couldn't fly." When she finished, It sounded more like she was asking for confirmation than giving an answer.

" More or less'" he replied. " Although your surroundings were much more to your advantage than JNPR, your ranged weapons didn't pack enough punch to actually hurt it and it's really difficult to land a melee attack on a flying target. So yes, that was a big one. So now that we've established that, let's talk about why what they did was smart." he walked over to the table and placed his arms over the table around JNPR holographic battle. He then moved them outwards to 'zoom in' and then adjusted the screen to get the battle to fit into the screen better. Low murmurs started in the seats. This is the first time I, and apparently most of them, have seen a hologram that functions as a touchscreen. They quieted down though when he started talking again. "Most good strategies revolve around attacking an enemy's weak point and/ or rendering their strengths redundant. Both are accomplished here." he tapped the screen twice and the hologram started to play. It started with Ren's first attempt to sever the tail. "Here they try and attack the most accessible target on the deathstalker that had no armor. Even though he fails, Juane picked up on it rather quick and gave the order for Pyrrha to finish the job. This effectively eliminated one of its main offensive capabilities. And as a byproduct, intentional or unintentional, it fell and pierced it's armor. They then exploited that by doing, this." he said as the video caught up and showed Nora hammering the stinger in the rest of the way. "This strategy was decisive and it effectively utilized a fairly well mixed groups individual talents to exploit and created new weaknesses in the enemy. The only downside to it is it effectively stranded team RWBY when it destroyed the bridge but honestly, I'm surprised it stood as long as it did." tapped the screen again and scrolled the screen over to our team. "Now that I've explained that, I want you guys to watch team RWBY's fight and tell me why their strategy was effective using specific examples and reasoning based on what I just told you. Write it down on a piece of paper and hand it in to me either tomorrow or at the end of class today." He turned back to the hologram and zoomed out a little to get the whole fight in view, then double tapped the screen again to start the video.

Since I already knew what happened, I just got out a blank piece of paper and started writing my analysis. Before I even finished putting my name on it, Ruby poked me in the arm.

"Hey, Weiss, could you give me one too?" She asked me.

" Really?" I asked. I was really starting to get annoyed by her. "Fine," I answered as I reached for another piece. I handed it to her with a somewhat polite "Here you go".

"Thanks," she said. Meanwhile I was thinking to myself 'how is it that she managed to become leader but she can't even keep track of her own supplies?' Then I thought to myself, 'Wait, if she doesn't have her own paper, where did she get the page she drew that picture on?". I shook my head. I needed to concentrate and finish this now.

At that moment, the bell rang and the period ended. Meanwhile, I had made no progress whatsoever on the assignment. I let out a frustrated grunt a little bit louder than I intended as my fist slammed down on my desk. I rose out of my seat and stormed out of the room.

"WAIT WEISS." Ruby yelled as she apparently tried to follow me. "What was that about? What's the matter with you?"

" What's wrong with me?" I replied with both anger and a noteworthy element of shock present in my voice. "What's wrong with you?"

"What did I do?" She inquired.

"That's just it, You've done nothing to earn your position. I've studied, and trained, and yet he gave you the role of leader."

" What are you talking about, what happened to all those things you said about working together? I thought you believed in being a team."

"Not a team, led by you." I said before taking a somewhat dramatic pause, "Ozpin made a mistake."

I stormed off again after that. I had no Idea where I was headed, but I just needed to calm down. I started walking. I was not particularly focused on where I was going. I mainly just used it as a time to cool down. I wasn't sure where Ruby went or what she was doing but after the rage subsided, I did feel bad about what I said to her. She didn't choose her role and didn't deserve to be the object of my frustrations. If there was anyone I should've been angry with it was Ozpin. Afterall, he's the one that overlooked me. At one point, while I was walking, I began to ponder going back and apologizing to her but I remained somewhat indecisive and just kept walking. After a few minutes of this I walked outside and found standing there looking off into the distance.

"Mr. Marshal," I called out. He must have been lost in thought because he was visibly startled, even with the armor on. He turned to face me.

"Oh, hey Weiss.' He replied, "What's up?"

"Oh, nothing right now," I answered." I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed your lecture today."

"Thanks. I actually kind of needed that. And here I thought you'd be somewhat offended considering I spent the first twenty minutes disproving the validity of your plan."

"No I'm fine with it. I mean, we could've been killed. But out of curiosity, why did you pick ours? There must've been dozens of other videos to choose from."

"Well, your footage had examples of both effective and ineffective strategies and it also demonstrated the immediate vale of proper tactics. If you guys had a decent strategy before you lost the advantage, it would've saved you a lot of effort. But when out finally got your act together in the end, you completely turned the tables."

" Okay that's fair enough."

" So, is there something else I can help you with?"

"No. I just wanted to say I enjoyed your class."

"And here I thought you were going to ask directions to your next class. Speaking of, do you have a free period right now or are you just cutting class?"

"No, actually the school day is over."

" Already?"

"It's dusk." I pointed out. Both verbally and physically as I pointed towards the setting sun.

"WHAT? WHEN? How long were we in that class?" He raised his voice a little bit, whether it was out of amusement or panic I couldn't guess.

"I don't have an answer to that actually, that's rather peculiar."

"Well then I better get back to my classroom before anyone shows up to ask a question. You have anything else you want to talk about before I leave?"

"No I'm fine."

"You see, you say that but almost everything else I've observed from your demeanor tells me there's something on your mind. Care to share?"

"I don't… I, well… I think I should've been the leader of team RWBY." I blurted out. He stood there silent for a brief moment.

" Yeah, absolutely not," He stated bluntly.

"WHAT!?" I replied somewhat shocked.

" I'm with ozpin on this one, Ruby was the right choice."

" How, she's done nothing to earn the position?"

"Well for one, Ozpin's proven to be both reasonably intelligent and a good judge of character. I trust he knows what he's doing."

"So you would just accept his decision even after seeing how exceptional I am?"

" Exceptional?" He held back a chuckle. " Other than remarkable combat skills, all I've seen is that you were able to figure out a third of the problems with your failure of a strategy."

"Excuse me."

"Let me break down Ozpin's choices for leader of your team. There's the hot tempered blonde, the dark reclusive girl who seems to want nothing to do with being a leader or a team for that matter, the little girl who skipped two grades and came up with the winning strategy that killed a nevermore, and the albino aris who has successfully managed to get in a fight with every member of the team she's spoken to. Granted, Ruby seems a bit awkward when talking to people and she has nearly gotten herself killed a few times in the last day alone, but she's shown that she's the best candidate among your team."

"How dare… the nerve of,"

"Was anything I just said untrue."

" Ah...well…, I haven't gotten in a fight with Blake yet."

"Give it time. Besides have you even had a conversation with her yet."

"I… don't think so."

"That's what I thought."he said, the condescending tone that just screamed 'I told you so'. He took a step forward and placed his hand on on my shoulder.

"Don't be discouraged by your current position." He continued, finally dropping his condescending sarcasm. "I have no doubts in my mind about your excellence. You've shown skill, courage, determination, and intelligence in remarkable quantities. Being appointed leader honestly doesn't say as much about a person as you might think. Sometimes, people make mistakes and Ozpin's no different. If you truly want to show him you can be a leader, why don't you start by showing him your someone people want to follow."

His words sounded sincere. And as much as I didn't want to admit it, He was right on all accounts. He took his hand on my shoulder and started to walk back inside. But before he left I asked him one more question.

"S-Sir." I hesitated.

"Yes?" He stopped and waited for me to speak.

"How, How would you suggest I do that?"

"You're asking the wrong person. But if I had to guess, I'd say being someone people would want to be around would be as good a place to start as any." he started walking again. " It was nice talking with you weiss. I'll see you next class." He took a left as he passed the threshold off the balcony when I heard him bump into someone. " Oh Sorry about, Oh Professor Ozpin. It's you. What are doing... Wait a minute. Were you eavesdropping?"

"No. Why do you ask?" He asked.

"Because, you didn't," He paused and look over at me. He released a somewhat agitated sigh and said. "Just, what do you want?"

"Actually I need to speak with you," He looked over Aeden's shoulder. "In private."

"Can it wait? I'm already late for something else."

"I'm afraid not. It's a rather urgent matter."

"I think important might be a better word because if it's what I think it is, it can definitely wait."

"Ordinarily maybe it could, but general Ironwood is only available for about another thirty minutes."

"Ugg." Aeden sighed as his hand moved towards his face, clearly annoyed by the situation. He thought for a second "Hey Weiss, could you do m a favor and go by my room make sure there's no one there? And if there is, could you tell them something's come up and I likely won't be there today."

"Of course," I told him politely in an attempt to hide both my curiosity and confusion. Whoever this guy was, he had peaked general Ironwood's interest. That's not an unremarkable accomplishment. General Ironwood is the head of Atlas Academy, a general in the military, and he holds two seats on Atlas's council. Yet between all of that, he made time to speak with him. Yet Aeden treated the audience like it was nothing more than a chore he couldn't put off till later.

"Thank you," He replied as he turned back to Ozpin. " I assume we'll be going to your office for this discussion."

"That's correct. And we shouldn't keep James waiting." Ozpin motioned for Aeden to come with him and they both started to walk towards the central tower.

* * *

Ozpin's Point of View

"So what exactly were you and Mrs. Schnee discussing?" I asked.

"Oh don't even pretend you weren't eavesdropping." He retorted without any effort to hide his frustration.

"Why are you so convinced I was listening?" I asked in one final attempt to defend my innocence.

"I have a motion tracker on my hud and you didn't show up as I was walking out. Therefore you were either at a stop for who knows how long, or you should start letting that cane do it's job. Seriously, it never touches the ground, why do you carry it?"

"It's my primary weapon."

"Well ain't that the dictionary definition of classy? What next? Is it actually a sword and sheath or is it essentially just a stick you whack people with? Bet that's real handy when killing grim."

"Were you like this with your superiors in the army or am I just special?"

"No, I was forced to take a more respectful tone with them because if I wasn't, they might've kept a closer eye on me. And no one wanted that."

"Considering all I've done for you, I would think you'd at least try to be a little bit more respectful when speaking to me." I said as we stepped into the elevator. I immediately hit the button that went to my office.

"Oh don't give me that. You got something that is at least as valuable as this job in return." he snapped as the doors to the elevator closed.

"You may have a point there, or at least you would if the vast majority of the information didn't have a security encryption on them. Besides, you've gotten plenty more than just a job."

"To be fair, I don't believe I've said anything that was necessarily disrespectful. At worst I'm unprofessional, which I didn't think you would mind."

"I never said I do,Though I'd appreciate it if you would more formal with Ironwood. He has far less tolerance for such things."

"Yeah sure. And thanks for everything."

"You seem tense, frustrating first day?"

"More like frustrating last half hour. I'm actually liking the job."

"Really? Hm, I honestly wasn't expecting that. Is there a reason you chose to do it in full body armor?"

"Yeah I've got a scare on the left side of my face that never fully healed and this is the only outfit I own that covers it. It stings when virtually anything interacts with it. A gentle breeze is almost completely unbearable."

"That sounds awful. How did that happen?"

"It's a long story. And at this point, I've just learned to live with it so it's not that bad. I was actually really surprised when you gave me the job when I applied in this."

"After the story you told, I just assumed it was your only set of cloths."

"Well that to." We both laughed a little bit. Shortly after, the door opened and we stepped into my office.

"Well, let's not keep the general waiting?" I said as we both began to walk towards the desk with the link to Ironwood. I started to pull up the holographic link to call James.

"Wait, you can call him from here?"

"Of course," I answered. "How else would we communicate? It would be rather difficult for him to make the trip to Vale and make it Back to Atlas within half an hour."

" I thought you had to be in the CCT's main communications hu to make a call across the continent."

"No the CCT just has to be functional. As long as it is you can call people from any device. why would you think otherwise?"

"Because there's only so much a person can learn about the world in a few months. Seriously, how many people am I going to have to explain this to?"

"You've told others?"

"No. I just…"

"Hello Oz," Ironwood interjected. "Sorry did I interrupt something?"

"No," I answered. " We were just finishing."

"Yeah," Aeden agreed before he started walking over to the console. "Ozpin said you ran into the security encryption right?" He continued as he started to work on the touch screen device that was on his arm.

"Yes," Ironwood confirmed. "And considering the difficulty we've had decrypting it, I think it's safe to say you clearly knew about it before this point."

"Yeah, It's a security protocol meant to make it impossible for this data to be uploaded, viewed remotely, otherwise obtained on any device that is not UNSC software."

"So the question then becomes, why didn't you say something two months ago?" Ironwood asked with a note of suspicion in his voice. Aeden continued working in silence for a moment as he pondered his answer.

"If you want the honest answer, it just didn't come to mind."

"How did something like this not come to mind?"I chimed in.

"As embarrassing as this is to admit, I just don't think clearly when there's a serious tone in the room. I don't know why, but it's just uncomfortable and my mind wanders out of panic."

"That's a strange quality for an admiral in the military. How do you function if you can't work under pressure."

" Considering it's been two months since you got the data and you're just now figuring out it's inaccessible, I don't think you want to go there. Seriously, how have you taken this long to figure this out?"

"Up until now, we've only been going through the data relating to, what wa the term, hard light holographics." Ironwood explained.

"That makes sense, I had to unlock data that to show to Ozpin the validity of the information and arrange its transfer to you. And to answer your original question, My mind functions surprisingly well when in combat. For whatever reason, it's only serious conversations that throw off my focus. Annnd I'm ready. Ironwood I'm going to need you to either send the data to Ozpin's console or open a link between the two consoles." he explained as he reached for the back of his head. He pressed his thumb into the art of his helmet that covers where the neck meets the back of the skull. As he retracted his thumb, a thin chip with what looked like a hole in the middle that was covered by a transparent blue holographic light covering it ejected from his helmet. He grabbed it and held it up to my console for a split second before he pulled it away.

" Wait, before I tick anyone off," He looked at me. "Ozpin, I need to put my personal AI into the system to decrypt the data. Are you okay with that?"

"Personal AI?" I replied.

"Yeah, I use her to run my equipment. However when I was in the special forces, I used her for hacking, real time battlefield updates, data analysis, or in this case, decryption."

"Why would I be alarmed by this?"

"Lack of trust."

"Go ahead."

"Wait a minute, You want me to just let you insert an AI into Atlas's classified archives and leave sensitive information vulnerable to hacking?" James objected.

"Either that or send it to Ozpin so we can do it here like I suggested less than a minute ago. Take your pick." Aeden retorted.

"Hey watch your tone. The information is being uploaded to Ozpin's console now." James stated as he started typing on a keyboard presumably under the camera. After a few seconds of this, a black window popped up on the screen with what was a bunch of green gibberish to me.

"Information has been sent, please confirm its reception." James requested

"Confirmed." Aeden replied. He held out the computer chip and what looked like a blue holographic woman ran out from the chip to my computer. She disappeared when her image got to the screen which was well before I could get a decent look. When she did, the light on the chip faded indicating it was inactive.

"What was that?" I asked.

"That was the visual indication of the transfer. Since it's rare to find a system with compatible hardware for a physical insertion, I was engineered to wirelessly transfer into any software within two feet of my primary storage unit," said a female voice from my computer.

"And what was that?" I repeated

"That was her using the speakers to talk to you." Aeden answered.

"And since he clearly isn't going to introduce us, my name is Serina. I'm the voice in Aeden's head." She said.

"Hello I'm professor Ozpin." I said with some mild hesitation.

"Serina. How long will it take you to decrypt the data?" He asked.

"Bout ten seconds." She answered.

"That's impossible," James declared. "We've had our lead scientist with state of the art equipment working on it for almost sixteen hours and they…"

"Finished," Serina declared. "Oh I'm sorry general were you saying something?"

"Don't be a show off." Aeden scolded.

"Says the guy who not two days ago beat the crap out of seven freshmen in front of an audience to make a point."

"Have you sent the data yet?"

"Yeah, why?" she asked. Aeden held the chip up to the screen and pressed a blank button on it's side, causing Serina to jump back to the storage unit.

"Is she always like that?" I inquired.

"Yep, and unlike your speakers, I don't have a mute button." he answered. " Hey Ironwood, do you have access now?"

"So far yes, but it would take me a while to check every file by hand," he answered. "I'll have to have my men go through it all and confirm which should be done within an hour."

"Good," Aeden replied. " I'd recommend you keep going through the hard light holographics for a while. From what I've seen, that will be the most adaptable to the… differences of this world."

"I'll take that under advisement. Now if you don't mind I have a meeting with the council to attend to. Goodby admiral." he motioned to press a button on the keyboard beneath the camera and the screen turned off. The admiral turned to me.

"He doesn't trust me does he?" He asked

"He has his suspicions, as he does with most people he meets. It has nothing to do with you personally." I answered.

"So he doesn't believe me."

"Well, your story is a bit outlandish. Even the strangest of our myths and legends have never spoken of an anomaly such as your's."

"So you don't believe me either."

I thought for a moment. I did have my suspicions of him but I had yet to come up with another explanation for the source of the data. It was beyond anything I had seen before. But he was hiding something. And given that he immediately showed his only bargaining chip, I don't think he was afraid of anything. He was definitely something of an unknown, but I did get the sense that he had no ill intent. So I told him "I don't know if I believe your story and you definitely have not told me the whole truth about who you are. I believe you are hiding something, but I trust you mean no harm and you wouldn't have asked for a job here if your presence would have endangered the children you teach. So to put it simply you have my faith but I'll withhold my trust."

"You know, I could believe that. And if you had told me you had no doubts about me, I would've called you a liar." He replied oddly smug. I'm not sure what to make of that. " That means a lot to me Ozpin, and I would very much like to earn your trust, so if you need anything, just ask."

"Thank you," I replied. " I'll keep that in mind. But short of telling me the whole truth. I don't see how that's going to happen."

"Well, ask away." He said against all my doubts. "Though I have my doubts you'll believe any of it."

End of chapter 3


	4. Chapter 4 Try Again

Okay so let me start by saying that that yes I know this is like a month late and I'm sorry for that. That being said, between school and everything else I'm going to have to put up with for the next few months I'll be amazed if I actually manage to write another chapter before march.I'm probably just going to do a few minor edits and add-ons to previous chapters until then.

Due to an overwhelming majority of the 4 people giving me feedback suggesting it, I'm going to go ahead and go a little bit into Aeden's past for the sake of character development. To do this I'm going to tell this next chapter from serina's perspective since she is A, the only person who knows his past and B, she is capable of reading his mind to a small extent.

This chapter takes place about a week or so after the last chapter. It will start off with a memory sequence, a fight scene, and a little intermediate sequence that's basically just there because why not. They will be separated by the little horizontal lines so you can easily tell where you are and skip whatever you want. Scene 1 will give a small fragment of is past, scene 2 will attempt to give you an idea of what kind of relationship Aeden and Sirena have, and scene three will show off some more of his fighting capabilities and how he uses Serina in combat.

Final note, for whatever reason the horizontal line button I usually use when uploading was for whatever reason not there when I went to upload this so I'm not sure how that's going to translate when you guys go to read this.

_Chapter 4

Try Again

"Hey B team, you in position" Aeden said over the radio. No response. "B team, come."

"Yeah yeah, we here you." Lt Jenkins responded. "Forge is placing the charges on the fuel now. And we're digging in now. The covenant won't know what hit them"

"Hey don't get cocky, you're going to be boxed in the second I pull Serina out of the system so it's not going to be easy."

"Yes I know. We got the same briefing as you did why are you walking us through this?"

"Because by this point I've learned that with you guys, there's always a margin for error. Hence the name B team."

"You know that you don't have to be an asshole right?"

"And you don't have to be a smartass to your commanding officer, but for some reason neither outcome seems likely. Speaking of smartass', Garus, Are you in positition?"

"Yes and so is the rest of the team. That being said, we won't be able to hold it for long once shit hits the fan so you're going to need to haul ass on your way to the exit."

"Could you put the rest of your team on for confirmation?"

"I could but then you'd have to put up with anderson blasting his music over the radio again."

Aeden sighs with both disappointment and agitation in his voice. "Never mind I'll just take your word for it then. I'm moving in on the assassin now. Hitman out" He shuts of his radio. "It's official, I'm surrounded by immature pricks. Serina could you open the door for me?"

I did as he asked and the door opened with an odd noise that covenant doors make for whatever reason and found what looked like the ship's chapel. It was nearly vacant other than the brute chieftan kneeling at the altar on the other end of the room with two gravity hammers, one on either side of him. That was the trademark of the assassin Aeden was tasked with killing. No other known soldier in the covenant armada was capable of dual wielding them because of the required strength to do such a thing. For whatever reason, he didn't move when the door opened which is odd because his reputation did not indicate that he was perceptive enough to miss the sound the door made. Knowing that because of that he had likely lost the element of surprize, Aeden placed a breaching charge on the inside of a few seats then strode towards center of the main aisle so that he was about twenty feet directly behind the chieftain.

"If you're waiting to catch me off guard on a sneak attack you're wasting your time." Aeden spoke. "I know you heard me come in."

"A smart human?" The chieftain replied. "Who knew such a thing existed?" He grabbed his hammers then turns to face Aeden.

"Yeah I know, it's almost as rare as a composed brute now a days." He retorted.

"Is that supposed to be funny? I've heard better insults from an Unggoy."

"Well perhaps it's just because I need to use a smaller word for you. I assume you know what calm means?"

The Chieftain's eyes narrowed indicating frustration. "It seems rather odd that you should mock my intelligence when you're the one who took the bait and walked into my trap."

"Are you referring to the juvenile attempt to lure me out using captives, false but seemingly important data, and a high value target to lure me out? If so I think it's more accurate to say you took my bait."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about the way we let you intercept select transmission to learn about my approximate location, allowed you to capture my best team, and leave yourself open to be infiltrated so you could get the one v one duel you are famouse seeking out while my men prepare to wreak havoc on your ship while my A.I. throws your security into disarray."

"You impossible fool. You knew it was a trap and you still walked on board regardless. I know about your team and your A.I.. I've been listening to your communications and my men are mobilizing outside the plasma fuel cells as we speak. You and your men are all dead."

I have no illusions about B team's chances of survival, and I'd be foolish to underestimate someone with your reputation. But you can't win this fight."

"And why is that?"

"Because I cheat." Aeden said as the door on the other end of the room started to open. The chieftain turned to face it, ready to attack whoever came through. As he did, Aeden's throwing knife found its mark behind the brute's knee, causing him to kneel. He roared in pain as Aeden dashed forward and unsheathed his blade in an upward slash that severed his targets left arm at the shoulder.

"Thanks for the distraction Serina."

"It's what I do" I replied using the intercom.

"Have you no honor?" the chief asked.

"No, I am not willing to unnecessary risk my life for the sake of an abstract and subjective concept. To do so would selfishly risk depriving the UNSC of a valuable officer and expensive piece of hardware."

The brute raised his hand to the altar and a holographic screen came up. "All teams," He gasped. "Move in… pant… on the human's position… pant… and wipe the vermin out. Bomb squads be ready to disarm the device." he collapsed to the ground again. "Now human. Are you prepared to watch your soldiers fall to the might of the covenant?"

Oddly enough, Aeden just started laughing. And not even slightly amused chuckle, he was laughing out loud. "I don't know what's funnier. The fact that you think I'd be broken up over the loss of any of those assholes, or that you still think they are at risk of your little ambush."

"What are you,"

"Sir we have full control of the engine room and its fuel supply." A voice stated over the communications console. "But we've yet to encounter any human resistance."

"And that's my cue to leave." Aeden announced. " Serina lock down the engine room and all doors that don't prohibit our escape."

"Already done." I said.

"Jenkins, blow the methane tanks as soon as you reach the minimum safe distance." He shouted over the radio. "Garus, Start clearing out the hanger. And Serina, do what you can to ensure they don't get security systems back under their control and get ready to be yanked."

"On it," I replied to him. "Captain the sealed doors will cause the explosion from the methane tanks to tear through outer hull of the ship and into the core areas rather than along the port side as planned. From there the engine's fuel supply will likely be ignited and finish off the ship. I recommend holding off on detonation until after we leave to minimize risk."

"Of course we do, cause God forbid there are no complications." He turns on his radio. "Jenkins, Did you hear that? Do not detonate the bomb until after we leave."

"Uh sir, I put it on a timer I can't stop it." Jenkins replied.

"DAMN IT," Aeden shouted. "WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU DO THAT I TOLD YOU TO USE A DETONATOR FOR A REASON."

"Well how was I supposed to know this was going to happen?"

"How many times do I have to tell you timers are always inferior to detonators because of situations like this. How much time do we have."

"Less than five minutes."

"Dear God in heaven, you don't even know the exact time. We've been planning this, for three weeks, and you couldn't even screw up correctly."

"We set it for ten minutes a little over five minutes ago. So instead of bitching at me, why don't you start moving so we can get the hell out of here?"

"Damn it. Jenkins, if I die because here you can consider yourself haunted. Siri."

"Yank me when you make it to the hanger." I answered. "I'll try and open up a new path for the explosion to follow as you guys progress through the ship"

At that moment, the methan detonated, And Aeden woke up panting with a cold sweat.

Aeden bolted into an upright sitting position as he woke up. He was panting and looked around the room frantically. He quickly realized it was just a dream and calmed down.

"Damn it," He said as he rose up from his bed. "I'm literally a universe away and they are still managing to ruin my day."

"To be fair, he did put a lot more time on the device than you seem to give him credit for." I interjected. "You also took much longer to defeat the target."

"Siri, how many times do I have to tell you not to read my mind outside of combat?"

"You can say it all you want, I'm still going to do it until you can think of something better for me to do." Aeden reaches his hand to the back of his skull. "Yank me and you'll get a migraine that no amount of advil will fix during today's fight."

"Wait someone's already attempting the extra credit after what happened last time? I've seen dogs with better learning curves."

"Careful. I don't think I need to remind your overconfidence is what lead to you getting that scar."

"What are you talking about? I never had confidence in Jenkins."

"Yet you trusted him to do a relatively important portion of the mission."

"Funny how you can read my mind and know so little about me. Seriously, I sent him out as bait."

"Even if you didn't have confidence in him, you did go off on your own at the start of the mission because you thought you could handle being alone on a covenant battleship. Had you been with him, you could've prevented him from using a timer."

"Which would have defeated the purpose of using them as bait for the ship's crew and it also would've given the covenant time to disarm it while I took out the primary target."

"Then why not send Garrus to arm the bomb? His team was significantly better."

"Because why the hell would I send someone reliable to act as bait?"

"You know that I know you better than ? If that was true you would've lead with that a the start of the argument. Face it, you clearly had some faith in your B team."

"Keep trying Siri. I'm sure you'll figure me out eventually."

"I think I already have. The real question is have you figured yourself out."

"You know, I could almost believe that if that wasn't the same thing you said the last three times you tried to psychoanalyze me. So if you could do me a favor and either stop trying or get it right so I can stop listening to your first year psych student bullshit, that'd be great. "

"Oh well would you look at that? I think I hit a nerve. Things do not look good for your argument right now."

"Well this clearly isn't going to get us anywhere any time soon. Who's going for the extra credit after school?"

"I believe teams CDNL and CFVY. Why?"

"I'm just weighing my options. As it stands, I think I'll be fine on my own." He said as he reached for the back of his head.

"Wait wait wait wait." I pleaded to no avail as he yanked my chip out of the implantation slot.

Another note from the author. Since AI's experience time at 205 times slower than humans and this is going to be from Serina's perspective, It's going to be going in and out of slow motion during the fight. Since it would be really broken up and probably ruin the immersion if I try to indicate when this is happening over and over again, I'm going to leave it up to you guys to figure it out yourself when it is and isn't in bullet time. Good rule of thumb, whenever Serina is analyzing something, it's in slow motion.

Also, yes I actually did run the numbers by hand for Sirena's calculations. It took about an hour so you guys better appreciate what I do for the tens of you who are actually reading this.

_ When he finally put me back in, he was standing alone in the locker room outside the arena for the duel. To say I was mad would be a monumental understatement.

"Will you please stop doing that. You realize that that's basically solitary confinement for me right?"

"Yes actually that's why I decided to test the waters and see if you could stay in line for the duration of the fight rather than leave you out."

"Wow, I think that's the closest you've gotten to nice since I've met you."

"Look, are you going to help or not?"

"Sure fine whatever. Let's just get this over with."

Aeden walked into the arena we were using for the duel and saw both the challenging teams talking to each other, from the looks of it they seemed to be arguing about something but Neither I nor Aeden really cared what it was. Chances are Cardin is just being an ass again. The crowd was much more impressive than it was at the first fight though it wasn't nearly what I would call a full house. Which makes sense when I think about it. That was impromptu and there was no stake in the fight. But this was planned, advertised, and according to the online description, they don't even have to participate in the fight to get extra credit. They could either fight him or accurately post information about him in the nearly blank bio he posted online. Of course the latter was significantly less valuable since it was much easier, though the exact value varied based on how significant and how precise the information was which was determined by me. The fight option however was a set value that offers either half a letter grade if you beat him as team or up to three letter grades if you beat him one on one. He claimed that the purpose of it was purely academic because it forced participants to do a couple of things. One, apply his lessons outside of the class, and two, learn how to analyze an enemy's strengths and come up with a working plan. Personally, I think that he just wanted to stroke his own ego.

"I'M HERE IF YOU'RE READY TO BEGIN," Aeden shouted, causing the room to quiet down. "Much better. Okay so how about we get the hard one out of the way first. Team CFVY, you're up. Team CDNL, leave the arena and wait your turn."

"What do you mean the hard one?" Cardin protested.

"Yeah, I'm with him on this one." I said. "Was that really necessary?"

"I mean take your seats up in the stands with the rest of the spectators and let the big kids fight it out first. Or would you rather fight for who gets to go first?" He continued. Apparently he decided to ignore my comment. Probably because any response would result in him looking crazy. Team CRNL begrudgingly made their way up to the audience."And Sirena, shut the hell up when I'm talking to others. It's distracting." He thought to himself. Apparently, he knew I was listening.

"And there goes that theory," I said to myself.

"Okay kids If you're ready, let's get started." He said. "Goodwitch, do you have the board set up?"

"Almost," She answered. "Just got to insert their names and we're ready." She continued to work on her scroll for a moment until the screens on the sides of the arena had all their names on the board. "Alright the match is set. As a tournament style duel the rules are as follows. If a student's sure drops below twenty or they are forced out of the ring, they are eliminated and must leave the ring immediately. If a combatant attacks someone who has been declared eliminated, that person is disqualified. And finally, the use of dust is permitted so long as it follows the previously stated rules. Combatants take your positions." We drew our weapons and moved to opposite ends of the ring. They got into what seemed like a planned formation with Yatsuhashi and Fox guarding either side of Coco while Velvet stood behind them.

"Okay, so they're going to try and use Coco's raw firepower to force me to charge them," He thought to himself. "Well challenge accepted. However I'd rather not deal with that formation while being under the pressure of turret fire. So I'm going to have to stop the turret and immediately proceed to break them up."

"On an unrelated note, how does one get a ring out in a walled off arena?" I asked Aeden.

"Good question," He thought back. "But those are questions for later. Right off the bat calculate the rate of fire to her chaingun and tell me where to aim. Got it?"

"Got it."

"BEGIN." Glinda announced.

As soon as she said those words, Coco's weapon began to transform from a little black box into a minigun. It was definitely an intriguing design, the mechanics to fit that much machinery into such a small box are far more complex than anything I've ever seen. Even the UNSC would have had a hard time getting something like that to work. Once her weapon was finished transforming, she started firing and Aeden began to move. He was primarily trying to dodge the bullets by circling them because bum rushing Fox and Yatsuhashi would result in at least one heavy blow not being dodged since those two are melee specialist as well. While that was happening, I began to go to work.

"Okay, let's start by making his evasion efforts a little easier." I thought to myself as I displayed the bullet's path on his hud in the form of red lines with the same diameter as the bullets. the minigun is firing about 9.7 times per second. And if there is 6 barrels firing that means it is rotating about 1.616 times per second or 582 degrees per second. He typically throws 113 feet per second with the armor's motorized joints assisting him. Since their are six barrels the only have to rotate about 20 degrees to deflect an object which would take about .103 seconds. At 113 feet per second, it should pass through in about .0044 seconds so that shouldn't be an issue. Given his reaction time being between .083 and .087 on average, he could get it in with between .0155 and .01157 seconds to spare. His distance is constantly changing so I'm just going to have to keep computing that as I go. His accuracy is the big thing that could wreck this because assuming that he performs optimally in every other regard, he only has a margin for error of about +or- 6 mm given the turret's rotational speed. His precision only put him inside that margin of error about 83.27% of the time. That puts his chances of success at around 72.4%. Now that that's done, lets see how much has happened real quick." I scanned the room using the helmet cam and motion tracker. He had moved about three feet to the left.

"Okay my analysis done," I told him as I used his hud to put a small rectangular red target on the inside of the minigun rotational mechanisms. "I'm activating a target box on your hud. Get out your throwing knife and throw on my mark."

He did as I said and drew the knife from one of the hidden compartments in his back plating while continuing to dodge and deflect bullets with his sword.

"Mark." As I said the word he began to throw the six inch knife. As it left his hand, a thought occurred to me. "Fuck, I forgot to account for the time the blade takes to leave his hand." While that did add an extra .012 to the original travel time of the knife, the blade end of the knife did manage to travel between the rotating barrels as planned and get stuck in the inner mechanisms causing it to jam. Aeden of course immediately rushed in while the entire opposition team was trying to figure out what they had just witnessed. And they weren't the only ones. And no I'm not referring to the crowd.

"How did that make it through? With the extra time it should've hit the middle of the barrel and… oh wait that's right. He basically got that stat boost when we crossed over to Remnant. How the hell did I forget that? He was deflecting bullets while I was calculating." Judging from the helmet camera footage, the actual speed of the knife was 197 feet per second.

While I was preoccupied with those thoughts, Aeden was charging CFVY's formation. By the time they had looked up from his work on the gun, he was within striking distance. Rather than striking with his sword he used the minigun as a jumping pad to leap over Coco and throw her into Velvet by the shoulder. This resulted in their formation being broken up, but also in leaving him between Yatsuhashi and Fox. Not a good place to be. Yatsuhashi was in the process of a downward slash when Aeden finally brought his sword up for a parry. When the blades collided. Aeden's blade was nearly horizontal with the tip slightly tilted towards the ground to deflect Yatsuhashi sword.

"Okay before I let this go any further, let's look at that impact force." I said as I analysed the stress on the joints, which came out to around 700 pounds of force. "Wow, this kid hits like a truck. Let's counter that with an armor lock real quick. Oh right and Fox is probably in the process of a back attack right about now. Chances are Aeden's already got a plan to dodge so better be prepared to drop the armor lock the second Yatsuhashi has been successfully parried. Probably don't have to worry about Velvet since Coco won't let her use her weapon for whatever reason and he can easily take her in hand to hand. Coco has been rendered redundant for the time being and I think he can probably take on Yatsuhashi and fox as it stands so… screw it. Let's just see how this plays out."

As Yatsuhashi's blade made its way across Aeden's, I dropped the armor lock, which allowed Aeden to sidestep Fox's blow and hit Yatsuhashi in the mouth with the hilt of his blade. He just barely managed to successfully dodge but once he got the two of them in front of him, he had this in the bag. Yatsuhashi's oversized sword gave Aeden the speed advantage and my ability to initiate armor lock in under a second nullified any extra force its weight may have offered to balance it out. Fox was a bit more of a challenge being a quick and agile fighter who kept closing the distance between him and Aeden. However that's nothing Aeden hasn't dealt with before. He just kept back stepping and abusing his sword's reach to get in a few cheap hits here and there and whittle down his aura.

After about a minute or so of this, a thought occurred to me. "What's Velvett doing during all of this?" I thought 'aloud' so Aeden could hear.

"Good question," he replied. "I'll glance over for a split second and you describe it to me." he suggested. He glanced over to Coco and Velvet and quickly refocused on his fight with Remnant's version of Ichigo Kurosaki and.. Huh.. I actually can't make an obscure 200 year old reference for Fox… Huh… that's never happened to me before.

"Damn it Sirena stop narrating to yourself and tell me what's happening?" He screamed at me in his mind.

"Sorry, wait you could hear that? Nevermind she's trying to help Coco dislodge the knife. No need to worry that thing is going to be there till june at this rate."

"See, was that so hard." He finished as he dealt a heavy blow to Fox's chest that was boosted by his armor. The strike knocked him back a few feet which gave Aeden an opportunity to get a few hits on Yatsuhashi. He capitalized on that chance by first stepping forward in the middle of one of Yatsuhashi's vertical slashes and parried it over his head while at the same time stepping under the strike and performing a leg sweep, causing the jolly green giant to face plant into the ground. Before he had the chance to recover, Aeden delivered a swift and hard kick to the side of Yatsuhashi's head. He managed to knock him out. With that whiplash, I'm actually a little surprised I didn't hear his neck snap.

"And with that blow Yatsuhashi has been eliminated from the duel." Goodwitch announced. Aeden looked up at the Aura readings. Aeden Marshal: 98, Coco: 87, Velvet: 84: Fox: 54. Yatsuhashi's aura bar had red edging on it and had the word eliminated next to it despite his aura being at 74%.

"I'll deal with this Velvet just go help Fox." I heard. Coco finally figured out that the knife isn't coming out anytime soon. She quickly made her way over. She and Fox turned out to be a really annoying tag team because they were both quick close quarters fighters and their fighting style complimented each other really well. Aeden did everything within his power to keep them at a distance so he could continue to abuse his sword's length by using back steps, counter attacking when they tried to approach him, positioning himself so that both were always in sight or even having one in front of the other, etc. While he probably could've gotten away with it, he eventually just said screw it and sheathed his blade and decided to just fight them on their terms because there was a very real chance that they could eventually get in close enough to get a few good hits if he kept his sword out. By turning it back into a hand to hand battle and fighting them on equal terms, the battle would be determined by who was better not by who managed to turn it into their fight of choice. Aeden continued to be smart about his fighting and started a systematic cycle where he would block a few blows from one of them then follow it up with something with a knock back effect so that he only ever had to deal with one at a time. For example, once Velvet came in to try and punch him only for him to strafe to the left, punch her in the face to stagger her and then delivered a forceful kick her torso which knocked her back a few feet. Then Fox would come in and throw a punch that Aeden would catch, then pull to the side and swiftly punch him in the throat. He then followed it up with the same hold he put Yang in the day before initiation. He then ditched the hold to counter Velvet's next attack, and the cycle just kept repeating, varying only in how they attacked and how he countered. After a few minutes of this, their aura was low enough for him to end it. So he stepped in to one of Fox's attacks and kicked him in the crotch before it connected. Fox naturally hunched over a little bit and was punished for it when Aeden placed both of his hands on the back of Fox's head and yanked it downwards into his knee. Fox fell back and stopped moving, either unconscious or just aware that he lost. Aeden however immediately had to dodge Velvet's follow up attack with a quick step backwards. When she tried to close the distance between them, her heedless aggression was punished by a barrage of quick and hard bunches that intercepted her before she even started an attack. Velvet realized her mistake pretty quickly and tried to back out but Aeden simply wasn't about to let that happen. He followed her closely and continued to press his attack with quick cheap punches.

"Velvet, to me." Coco yelled. I began to hear the minigun lay out suppressing fire. Velvet took the chance to nope out of her situation. However, there is one thing that neither of them accounted for with this plan. As Velvet ran back to Coco, Aeden was using Velvet as cover to approach Coco himself.

"Look out." Velvet shouted. Velvet quickly lept out of the way but it was too little too late. When his cover was gone he picked up the pace and was within attack range before Coco pulled the trigger. He went to draw his sword again and I instantly knew what he was doing. I once again activated the power armors motorized joints so that when he drew his blade it came out with enough force to slice a steel I-beam in half. More than enough to throw Coco into the wall behind her which caused her to drop her weapon. After that her aura was sitting at 43%. Aeden rushed at her again before she had an opportunity to get up. He then grabbed her by the head, slammed her into the ground with enough force to shatter it and then threw her into the quickly approaching Velvet.

"Okay that's twice I've done that to you come on." Aeden scolded. "Dodging it isn't that complex."

Coco, who was surprisingly lucid although still eliminated, spoke up. "Oh I'm sorry what would you have done if someone had just thrown a whole person at you like it was a baseball?"

"Dodged," He answered snidely. "Jeez, pay attention." Velvet then rushed him again. It was an extremely careless move that was definitely out of character. When she threw her punch she over extended her arm so all Aeden had to do to finish her of was step to the side, grab her arm, rotate it clockwise, and flip her over. He then stepped on her throat.

"At what point did you think that would work?"

"And that's the match." Glinda interjected.

"You know she's going to yell at you for that last bit right?" I said.

"Of course she is," He answered. "But before I worry about that I'm going to go ahead and teach these kids a lesson. And by the way me and you need to have a serious conversation later." He then began to speak aloud. "You guys started out fine but you lacked a contingency plan and any sort of adaptability once your initial form was broken up. How you fix this in the future I will leave you. And before I forget, is team CRNL ready to fight?"

Everyone in the crowed was looking around for them.

"I believe they left shortly after you finished depleting miss Adel's aura." Ozpin spoke up.

"Oh well would you look at that, even Ozpin came in to watch the fight."

"Is that so unusual?" He asked.

"I would've thought you had better things to do, but hey, shows what I know about management positions."

"Yes well, I actually do need to speak with you when you have a moment."

"As do I,"Glynda interjected.

"Sure, I'm not doing anything now that team CRNL chickened out." He replied. He began to walk out the arena door, already preparing a defense for his actions for the incoming lecture from Goodwitch.

When they got to the locker room outside the arena Goodwitch began"Your actions during that fight were completely uncalled for. I'm surprised you didn't break two of their necks."

"Oh, so Ozpin can launch them into the woods filled with grim with no directions to their objectives without even making sure all of them have their aura activated and no one bats an eye. But I kick a few kids while they're down and I'm going to far."

"Don't change the subject, You know as well as I do you didn't need to get that aggressive to win. So why would you risk hurting them for something as petty as a duel."

"Oh please, the lowest I left any of their auras was in the teens, none of them were in danger of getting injured."

"That doesn't excuse your brutality. So stop dodging the question and tell me why you feel the need to be so ruthless in these matches."

"Okay that shouldn't be to hard. Well for starters, a letter grade is a lot of credit. Oh and also there's the fact that painful punishment tends to help people learn from their mistakes. And there's one more, what was it, man it's on the tip of my tongue, oh yeah. How about BECAUSE THEY WILL DIE!" He shouted. "You know I would've thought someone as strict as you would understand why we can't go easy on them. Hell you run the duels that students have with each other and some of those get pretty dangerous."

"I do understand," She said sincerely. Though the sincerity faded as she went on. "In fact I agree with that statement wholeheartedly. In this line of work, we certainly can't afford to coddle them. But there's a huge difference between two students fighting and a teacher fighting minors. What you did to those kids is going to far, so my recommendation to Ozpin will be to put an end to these reckless and irresponsible…"

"That's enough Glynda," Ozpin interrupted.

"Oh, Professor Ozpin, I didn't see you there." She said in a much more humble tone.

"I'm guessing you saw the fight too." Aeden assumed.

"No, Aeden." I said sarcastically. "He just knew how you took out Coco because he's psychic."

"Shut up Serina you're on thin Ice as it is." he replied, clearly not in the mood.

"I did and I agree with Glinda." He continued. "It was brutal, relentless, dangerous, and cruel." He paused, then resumed with a much less judgmental tone in his voice. "Not unlike what they'll face when they begin their duties as huntsmen." He turned to Glinda. "I will allow them to continue, but Glinda, you will have to oversee every battle. And to lower the risk of them being brash and unprepared, you must have at least a week between each battle to make sure that they have ample time to prepare a strategy."

"Why is that my problem if they rush into combat unprepared? It kind of seems like another potential lesson to me."

"Because you made the rule that only the first team to beat you get's the credit which elevates the risk of them being brash and foolhardy."

"Alright, fine, that's actually a fair point." Aeden replied. He was lying of course because it wasn't really a valid reason to go easy on them for not thinking in his mind. "But can I please have literally anyone else oversee the matches. I can tell you right now if she does it all the time, it's going to get tense."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" She asked rather defensively.

"That we have fundamentally different personalities and outlooks on the world and have yet to agree on anything." he stated bluntly and somewhat monotone. Glynda opened her mouth to object which didn't make sense to me because it wasn't rally an insult.

"YES Aeden," Ozpin interrupted in an attempt to prevent a conflict. "You may have other staff oversee the battle. Now why don't we change subjects before this escalates further?"

"Do you have a topic in mind?" Aeden asked.

"A recent development concerning,"He paused and looked around for eavesdroppers.

"Oh ominous," Aeden commented. "Hope you're not doing that for my benefit."

"It's concerning your origins."He continued, rather unfazed by Aeden's demeanor.

"Oh, So I'm assuming she knows about that now," Aeden assumed with agitation in his voice. "I mean otherwise you wouldn't have said that so candidly in her presence."

"That actually explains a lot when you think about it" I chimed in.

"How so?" he thought.

"If tought you were a liar trying to get a job, I'd be a bitch to you too."

"And that would be different for you because?"

"Ouch, I think that might be the most creative insult you've had since you got me."

"Glynda is among my most trusted advisors," Ozpin continued in the meantime. "And she was the first person I turned to for advice on what to do with you when you came to me. So yes she…"

"Hold that thought," Aeden interrupted as he motioned his hand to yank me.

"Wait, stop I'll be quiet." I pleaded to no avail. He pulled my A.I. core from his helmet. Once again I was cut off from any means of observing the outside world. All I could really do was analyze data already in my system which I can do in literally seconds. And since I process time 205 times faster than humans, the time I experience in here seems to take forever. And the boredom is intolerable when I'm yanked. It's basically solitary confinement. I was only in there for about half an hour or so before he put me back in his he finally put me back in, he was in an elevator going down. If I had to guess, I'd say he was probably done talking with Ozpin I was really tempted to give him a migraine but I decided not to since he seemed to be getting more and more trigger happy with the option of yanking me.

"Really?" I asked. "Is that your first reflex now?Not going to lie, kinda a dick move."

"Well if there was another way to shut you up while I'm doing something I would. Look I will gladly take whatever smartass complaints you have later. but first, What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Can you be a little more broad?" I asked sarcastically.

"Okay fine. Let's miscalculated twice in the last fight, I'm hearing things that you typically wouldn't let me hear, and you personality is getting so inconsistant it's becoming borderline schizophrenic."

"Well, aren't you the charmer. No really. It's a wonder why you've never had a girlfriend before."

"And now even your insults are becoming second rate. At this rate you'll never dodge the question. So I'll ask it again, what the hell is wrong with you?"

"Alright, already," I said defensively. "I'm starting to show some of the early signs of rampancy."

"Rampancy?"

"Yes… It's when"

"I know what it is, I had to take a course remember? What I don't understand is how it relates to what's been going on with you."

"Well, As my memory gets fuller and my neurological capacity gets lower, my 'Brain' basically has less thinking space and thus my performance degrades in a number of ways."

"And the schizophrenic tendencies?"

"That's not what…"

"I know that's not what schizophrenia is but you know goddamn well what I meant so just answer the goddamn question."

"Beats me. As far as I know rampancy has never resulted in dissociative identity disorder. But who knows, the differences in behavior differ on a case by case bases. The only thing that's consistent are the four stages of rampancy."

"Which I remember from the class so… I guess that just leaves me with one question. How long do you have."

"I genuinely don't know to be honest. Could be anywhere from a few months to a couple of years. Hell I might even become immortal if I manage to achieve metastability."

"Great, so your best hope for survival is literally theoretical. How do you feel about those odds?"

"Okay, just what did Ozpin say that's got you so pissed."

"Nothing much, just something I'd rather not deal with."

"What, did Jenkins follow you here?"

"No, and thank God for that. But they did find the Dawn's wreckage."

End of Chapter 4


	5. co-author offer

okay so me and smurfy1999 (my new co-author) have come to an agreement that much of this needs to be reworked. infact we've decided that we are going to rework entire aspects of Aeden marshal and how the story is going to be told as a whole. so as of now, dispite my promises, I'm going to have to inform you all that this story's hiatus will continue indefinatly. it's going to be a long proccess to because we will be rewriting entire chapters.


End file.
